Injury Time...

Awoooo! During training this week (Tuesday) i tore a muscle in my neck and pulled some more in my upper back! Very painful. I laid off training for the rest of the week and to be frank (RICKY!! lol) it bloody hurts.

I have been applying hot and cold pads on it over the last few days but it's not getting any better. To add to my injury two little idiots who i didn't want in my club last night threatened to stab me so me being me had to make them see the errors of their ways! This has pulled both injury's again and now I'm back to square one.

Not a great week so I'll leave it there, hopefully get back in the water next week and maybe some very light stretching. Hopefully tonight will be a quite night on the door and idiot free or the next person that threatens my training schedule will need more than an ambulance to take them away!

Getting There...

Just a brief entry tonight, training this week has gone o.k. I've been back in the gym and pool training went fine last night. Statics went something like this..

3x FRV holds all around 45secs - 1min
2min breath up 2/4/2 full inhale plus 8 packs 3.15sec
2min breath up 2/4/2 full inhale plus 8 packs 3.45sec
2min breath up 2/4/2 full inhale plus 10 packs 4.08sec
2min breath up 2/4/2 full inhale plus 10 packs 4.11sec
5min breath up 2/4/2 full inhale plus 12 packs 5.20sec

All holds were taken up to 10 contractions except the final hold which was 30 contractions.

Dynamic session went o.k and trained on technique only over 14x 25mtr lengths.

Training Wet

I was looking forward to getting into the pool last night as i had done some good dry training prior to getting wet this week.

I did exactly the same breath up's as i did on my dry training this week and added a few seconds onto my time. I was hoping to add a lot of time onto my dry statics but alas it didn't happen.

My stopwatch didn't work on the first hold or the 5th hold which is usually my last (Doh!!) so i held out for a 6th hold which i held for 5mins 19sec with 20 or so contractions.

Hold 1 x
Hold 2 2.11sec
Hold 3 3.51sec
Hold 4 4.19sec
Hold 5 x
Hold 6 5.19sec

No contractions throughout all the holds except the last one which i took about 20. Generally quite a good session in statics. I then went into the big pool for my dynamic session which went great. I hit 100mtrs again which i was pleased with but my technique sucked! I rushed through it too much and didn't relax enough. Never mind.

Dry Training Week

I've never been one to do much dry training but this year i have set myself to do dry training one week out of ever four. My dry static times are never great and i strongly believe that dry holds are harder than in the pool as there is no dive reflex when you train dry.

Anyway, i tried something a bit different this week as Co2 / O2 tables have never been my thing either! (god it sounds like i don't like many freediving training techniques at all) well...i don't!

Dry training on Monday went something like this...

2mins normal tidal breathing (no purges / no packing)
Hold 1 : 1.53sec (no contractions)
2mins normal tidal breathing (no purges / no packing)
Hold 2 : 2.07sec (no contractions)
5mins 2sec inhale 4sec hold 2sec exhale I'll refer to as (2/4/2) (5 purges / 5 packs)
Hold 3 : 2.58sec (no contractions)
10mins (2/4/2) (5 purges / 5 packs)
Hold 4 : 3.40sec (no contractions)
10mins (2/4/2) (5 purges / 5 packs)
Hold 5 : 5.05sec (20 contractions)

Confused, yer me too! I found this technique on http://uk.youtube.com/ which a guy uses to great effect (His P.B 7mins 18sec) with little or no contractions, he also believes that you should not take any contractions whilst warming up as these would fatigue you. (can't say i would argue against that!!)

I must admit i felt very close to blackout a few times but did put myself through it without any real dramas so i tried it again tonight and the results are as follows.

2mins normal tidal breathing (no purges / no packing)
Hold 1 : 1.59sec (no contractions)
2mins normal tidal breathing (no purges / no packing
Hold 2 : 2.13sec (no contractions)
5mins 2/4/2 (5 purges / 5 packs)
Hold 3 : 3.36sec (no contractions)
5mins 2/4/2 (5 purges / 5 packs)
Hold 4 : 4.28sec (no contractions)
5mins 2/4/2 (5 purges / 8 packs)
Hold 5 : 5.15 (10 contractions)

As you can see tonight i brought the 10mins 2/4/2 breath up down to 5mins which helped me from feeling hypercapnic before the hold. Still some tingling but better.

I'm in the pool tomorrow so hopefully with the dive reflex on my side i should be getting back somewhere close to the 6min mark again.